NY Court of Appeals declines to hear direct appeal in suit against law ending prison-based gerrymandering

February 14, 2012

For Immediate Release: February 14, 2012

For more information, please contact:

Brennan Center for Justice

Erik Opsal

(646) 292-8356

erik.opsal@nyu.edu

Center for Law & Social Justice

April Silver

(718) 756-8501

pr@akilaworksongs.com

Dēmos

Anna Pycior

(212) 389-1408

apycior@demos.org

LatinoJustice

Madeline Friedman

(212) 739-7581

mfriedman@latinojustice.org

NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Mel Gagarin

(212) 965-2783

mgagarin@naacpldf.org

NYCLU

Michael Cummings

(212) 607-3300 x368

mcummings@nyclu.org

Prison Policy Initiative

Peter Wagner

(413) 527-0845

The New York Court of Appeals today declined to hear plaintiffs’ direct appeal in Little v. LATFOR, a lawsuit challenging New York’s law ending prison-based gerrymandering. The plaintiffs — who include upstate elected officials who would no longer unjustly benefit from claiming incarcerated people as residents of their districts — had sought to skip the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division and go directly to the Court of Appeals.

Attorneys for the 15 voters from around New York State who joined the suit as intervenor-defendants issued the following joint statement:

“Today’s decision leaves in place New York’s law ending prison-based gerrymandering, which advances fairness in redistricting and is in complete agreement with New York’s state constitution. The opponents of this law lost the policy debate in the legislature, and their efforts to reinstate the old unjust practice of prison-based gerrymandering have so far been unsuccessful in the courts. We look forward to defending this vital law at the appellate division.”

About Prison-Based Gerrymandering

There are dramatic examples of prison-based gerrymandering in upstate counties and cities. For example, half of a council ward in the city of Rome, New York is incarcerated. As a result, the actual residents of that ward wield twice the influence of other city residents. Recognizing the distortions caused by prison-based gerrymandering at the local level, 13 New York counties with large prisons – including four in plaintiff Senator Little’s district – have historically exercised their discretion to remove the prison populations prior to redistricting.

The new law brings consistency to redistricting in New York, prohibiting the state and all local governments from giving extra political influence to districts that contain prisons. Sen. Little’s lawsuit sought to have the new legislation struck down, the effect of which would require legislative districts – including her own, which contains 12,000 incarcerated persons – to include prisons when redistricting, to the detriment of all other districts without prisons.

Returning to this practice would have unfairly inflated districts containing prisons to the detriment of everyone else and would have violated the New York State Constitution. In addition, many areas containing large minority communities have been disproportionately affected by this practice, effectively diluting the votes of minority communities. The enactment of Part XX was considered a major civil rights achievement for New York State.

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April 22, 2015: Executive Director Peter Wagner will be at Colby College in Waterville Maine. Detail TBA.

May 11, 2015: Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy will be in NYC for the book launch party for Jason Stanley’s How Propaganda Works at 67 Orange. The party — and the royalties from the book — are to benefit the Prison Policy Initiative.

Events

April 22, 2015: Executive Director Peter Wagner will be at Colby College in Waterville Maine. Detail TBA.

May 11, 2015: Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy will be in NYC for the book launch party for Jason Stanley’s How Propaganda Works at 67 Orange. The party — and the royalties from the book — are to benefit the Prison Policy Initiative.

Meet us

April 22, 2015: Executive Director Peter Wagner will be at Colby College in Waterville Maine. Detail TBA.

May 11, 2015: Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy will be in NYC for the book launch party for Jason Stanley’s How Propaganda Works at 67 Orange. The party — and the royalties from the book — are to benefit the Prison Policy Initiative.

Events

April 22, 2015: Executive Director Peter Wagner will be at Colby College in Waterville Maine. Detail TBA.

May 11, 2015: Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy will be in NYC for the book launch party for Jason Stanley’s How Propaganda Works at 67 Orange. The party — and the royalties from the book — are to benefit the Prison Policy Initiative.